Eerie images have been unveiled following the recovery of an intact memory card from the wreckage of the ill-fated OceanGate Titan submersible. The $4.2 million vessel collapsed in June 2023, approximately 372 miles southeast of St John’s, Newfoundland, in Canada, resulting in the tragic deaths of all five individuals aboard, including OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, British businessman Hamish Harding, and former French navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has disclosed a series of haunting images found on the camera memory card recovered from the Titan sub, in conjunction with its final report on the incident which determined that flawed engineering led to the implosion of the vessel.
The camera, positioned on the exterior of the Titan’s hull, was engineered to capture video and still imagery at depths of up to 6,000 meters. Technicians at the NTSB’s Vehicle Recorder Laboratory managed to extract 12 still pictures and nine video clips from the SD memory card situated inside the camera. The memory card, believed to be a SanDisk Extreme Pro 512GB model, is estimated to be valued at around £60 on Amazon.
Despite the shattered lens visible through the sapphire optical window, the camera’s outer casing remained intact. The device’s resilience against the implosion was attributed to its sturdy titanium construction, while the synthetic sapphire crystal of the front optical window safeguarded the lens and internal electronics.
A few of the recovered videos seem to have been filmed underwater, as evidenced by the comparable lighting and surroundings depicted. Furthermore, the NTSB successfully identified the Launch and Recovery System (LARS) utilized to deploy and retrieve the OceanGate Titan submersible during training exercises or missions. One video clip shows a diver swimming in close proximity to the Titan, equipped with flippers and an apparent oxygen tank.
According to the independent federal agency, the diver seen in the video was linked to Missions 1 and 2 of 2023, primarily engaged in shallow water training near Bay Bulls, Newfoundland. The catastrophic dive was designated as 2023 Mission #5.
Additional images and videos reportedly captured in May 2023, a month before the disaster, portray scenes at the quay in Holyrood, Canada, and shots taken within the Remotely Operated Vehicle workshop at the Marine Institute’s primary campus in St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The NTSB report emphasized that data could have been stored either on the onboard camera memory or on a connected computer, contingent on the configuration. Notably, the report speculated that the camera was likely being set up to store data on the onboard computer on May 16th, with only one image accidentally stored on the camera’s SD Card before proper configuration for data storage on the computer.
No data with a timestamp post-dating May 16th was discovered on the camera, indicating that none of the data recorded on the SD Card pertained to the ill-fated voyage or dive.